A number of years ago, during a discordant period of my life in which my hair was a far more pleasing, though far less mature color, I found myself camping out on a ranch somewhere south of Uvalde, Texas. It was the spring of the year, and in every corner life was abuzz. Across the rolling landscape the bluebonnets resembled distant stains on the hillsides, offset by sweeping ribbons of Indian paintbrush and firewheel.

The prickly pear cactus were so thick we had to walk on stilts, and whenever we paused to take a break under a shade tree, there were so many javelina rooting through the greasewood we had to wear shin guards, and there were so many rattlesnakes, the Javelina had to wear ear plugs and walk upright, piggybacked five high, to preserve the integrity of the herd.

We were hunting turkeys at the time. My job was to shoot video footage of Rio Grande Gobblers, strutting to fake sounds emanating from cedar boxes, manufactured by rednecks from parts unknown with a passion for drumsticks and the call of the wild. Our guide was a guy from Lansing, Michigan, named Luther. Luther stilted ahead of us in a bent posture, reminiscent of Quasimodo. I never actually “met” Quaismodo, since he lived during a previous century, and was a fictional character, so when I say Luther stilted through the prickly pear and blackjack oak strewn hillsides like Quasimodo, I’m characterizing mostly from rumor and imagination, but “bent stilting” makes for a strong, if not unique image, and we’re all about unique at the Phatwater, so just ride with me on this one.

You may be wondering about a guy named Luther from Lansing, Michigan, guiding turkey rustlers through Texas prickly pear, and I don’t blame you. I mean, if I were contracting somebody to separate me from my cash so I could cover my ankles with permethrin and my face with greasepaint while he clucked up a lovesick, Lone Star, bald headed roadrunner on steroids for me to blast with toxic lead pellets, I’d expect him not to speak very often, but to speak with a ten-gallon drawl when he did.

“Turns out,” Luther told me, “round here, if a man’s gonna talk a turkey into a skillet, he’s gonna hafta talk Texas twang. Occupational necessity.”

Luther, I’m convinced, could have lied his way into the Texas State Senate with the best of politicians, should he have chosen this path.

Later that day, the box calling redneck from parts unknown drew down on a long-bearded turkey in a glade of crimson clover and removed him from the population. I caught it all on Betacam SP. The redneck was giddy with pleasure over his video captured skill as a nimrod of evolving fame. We met some time later with his wife, who at the time was being guided toward another gobbler by Luther. We were far from camp, where I had a playback machine, but the redneck wanted to show his wife the footage of his accomplishment. Could I not, he asked me, show his spouse the footage, through the camera?

“Yes,” I told him. “But it would be better to wait until we returned to camp.”

“No, I want her to see it now!”
“I want to see it now!” his lovely wife echoed. She was not wearing greasepaint. She had ladled a great deal of Mary Kay onto her cheeks, and it, along with her mascara, had begun to run in the late evening south Texas heat. She was rich. He was rich. They had sold a good number of cedar box turkey calls. They were in the habit of calling the shots.

“Okay,” I said. We were driving up a dusty stretch of road as I punched the rewind button to back up the tape and show her. Owls were beginning to hoot, coyotes were at choir practice, the setting sun had that aura of a ripe cantelope resting on the western edge of the planet.
“Well lookey yonder,” Luther said. There, just ahead, on the side of the road, were two enormous Rio Grande gobblers, strutting face to face, their wingtips dragging through the dust. One jumped up in the air, flapping like a . . . turkey. The other followed suit. They circled each other, gobbling, throwing their heads forward, necks outstretched.
Luther ground the van to a halt.
“Git the camer’ Git out!” the redneck from parts unknown shouted at me. “Git to fi’mming. Git it on tape!”
I jumped out, hit the high-gain switch, and began rolling tape. The two turkeys continued to strut and jump and flap, gobbling all the while. They looked like Sumo Wrestlers. The looked like beach balls. They looked like two black Volkswagon Beetles, 1967 models, with their doors wide open. I kept rolling film. Right over the top of the footage I’d shot earlier of the redneck from parts unknown, and his considerable accomplishment that was certain to skyrocket him to fame in the world of rednecks  from parts unknown game-call manufacturers.

I’ve made some other mistakes since then. My most recent mistake was to tell you all that we now have registration for the Phatwater through Regatta Central all ready to go. Well, we don’t. It didn’t work out. There is no online registration at this time.

But. By tomorrow, perhaps, certainly by the end of the week, Allen Hancock, Phatwater Veteran and able Macintosh Hero from Baton Rouge, with the aid of Jeremy Smith at Rare Design in Hattiesburg, will have us up and running with a new registration page on the KayakMississippi website. It’s what we’ve hoped to accomplish, all along, and it will be most ex, we hope. Just bear with us, and bear me no malice. Because, I’m sure I’ll make other mistakes. Because, if I don’t, I’m not trying hard enough.

Adam Elliott and Allen Hancock on the Phatwater, near the powerline, on Saturday’s Halph-Phat

Phatwater on the Natchez gauge today is 32.38′.

All For Now-KB